Myth & MetaphorThe ferryman Charon, and a soul being brought
by Hermes

Note: Following this brief introduction
below, I offer a list of links to many pages on Myth & Metaphor(See below). Enjoy!

This page of Mythos & Logos
is dedicated to Myth & Metaphor. Yet, in a way, the entire Mythos
& Logos Web Site is dedicated to Myth. How so? First, I
suggest you read my paper, Phenomenology,
Psychology, Science, and History: A Reading of Kuhn in Light of Heidegger
as a Response to Hoeller's Critique of Giorgi.
In this essay, I explore how we can understand the hidden meaning and ground
of a particular historical people as the Mythos. The Logos (discourse)
of a particular historical people always conceals the Mythos. But,
in my paper, I argue that there can be at least two kinds of Logos:
1) A Logos which denies its meaning and ground as the Logos or 2)
a Logos which presevers and shelters its meaning and ground. I believe
we live in an age, as in the former type of Logos, which denies its meaning
and ground.

How do we deny the meaning and
ground, our Mythos, in our particular historical age? I believe
we do so by failing to recall that we are claimed by Being to take up things
in a certain way (see the why
page or Heidegger).
The discourse of our particular age is dominated by the "mathematical,"
which, as Heidegger points out in Question Concerning Technology,
is "that 'about' things which we already know. Therefore we do not
first get it out of things, but, in a certain way, we bring it already
with us" (p. 276). The technological character of our everyday
discourse (gerede) doubly conceals the Mythos our age, because it
denies that it is a Mythos at all. Yet, the "enframing" of our technological
epoch is itself a form of revealing and concealing; it, too, is a form
of poesis. By claiming it holds the sole access to "Truth,"
it marginalizes other means of seeking truth as Aletheia -- truth as revealing
what has been concealed, the revealing-concealing advent of Being.
Other forms of revealing-concealing which send us on our way include poetry,
art, history, religion, etc., all of which find themselves in our age defending
themselves and attempting to legitimate themselves in the face of science.
In other words, when we understand "Myth" in this way, we are not speaking
of something that is "false" or "untrue," but rather, we are speaking of
that which is the meaning and ground which is taken up into language with
our everyday discourse or Logos. Science is not the only means of
taking up our Mythos into language -- in fact, as I've attempted to show,
it holds the danger of holding itself as the sole arbitor of sense-making,
of revealing, of poesis.

What might be an alternative?
I submit that an alternative to denying our Mythos with our discourse is
to view our discourse or Logos as a sanctuary for the Mythos. The
Logos can be understood as that which preserves the Mythos as we
tarry about in our everyday lives, doing and making. In this case,
we can understand our discourse as the 'common sense' of a historical people
which shelters and preserves the 'sensus communis.' The 'common sense'
serves the purpose of being a container which preserves the 'sensus communis'
so that it can be retrieved. Through the retrieveal of the 'sensus
communis,' the community is reoriented through the transformation of the
everydayness of 'common sense' through a ritual recovery. This ritual
recovery, for example, is evident in Eliade's description of "religious
man" in The Sacred and Profane.

Through ritual, a culture allows
for an opening in the 'at-homeness' of everydayness through an existential
transformation of everydayness by which 'common sense' becomes "uncanny"
and in which the 'sensus communis' may shine forth as the latent meaning
and ground. Certainly, Eliade makes this evident in his descriptions
of, for example, the festivals of the Australian Arunta and the Polynesia
people of Tikiopa.

With that said, I offer these
pages as a means to explore the Mythos of various historical people, and,
doing so, perhaps, we too can come to understand our own way, our own Mythos
-- and maybe even find ourselves on the way in a different way.

Below, you will find a whole
host of links to pages on various mythologies of many different cultures.
You will also find links to pages on various thinkers who have studied
the role of myth and metaphor in our lives. Enjoy!